About the Author
Plex, by Rockwell Automation, is the leader in cloud-delivered smart manufacturing solutions, empowering the world’s manufacturers to make awesome products. Our platform gives manufacturers the ability to connect, automate, track and analyze every aspect of their business to drive transformation. The Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform includes solutions for manufacturing execution (MES), ERP, quality, supply chain planning and management, Industrial IoT and analytics to connect people, systems, machines, and supply chains, enabling them to lead with precision, efficiency and agility.
Automotive Manufacturing Trends for the Balance of the Decade
Each year brings new predictions of the future. These predictions include what to expect, what will happen, and which technologies will power the expectations.While these predictions are always interesting to consider, they should be kept in the context of reality to have value for automotive manufacturers. With a rapidly evolving landscape, this industry is producers are under intense pressure…
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Digital Building Blocks for Leadership
Manufacturers inevitably begin with operational efficiency, cost reduction, and process improvement during the foundational stages of a digital journey. Beyond that, the tendency is to retain vestiges of traditional thinking that “wall off” other functional areas as separate from the production focus....
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When Customers Come Knocking: The Link Between Demand and Execution
There's an old business phrase that says that the customer is always right. While many companies have tied themselves into knots trying to service ever-changing consumer tastes, there is one area they often neglect to address in their efforts.What if the message customers send points to your system more than your product? And what if the things they ask for require you to abandon a manual system…
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What Can Manufacturers Learn from Brass Aluminum’s Quest for Visibility and Automation?
Running a multi-operational business is an impressive feat, but that hasn’t always been the case for Brass Aluminum Forging Enterprises (BAFE). The company specializes in the production of brass, copper, and aluminum forgings and was originally comprised of only two forging presses, one trim press, and an eight-operator workforce. Over the years, the company has grown both in size and in…
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Digital Building Blocks for Operational Efficiency
As Industry 4.0 continues to shape industries across the globe, one of the most significant beneficiaries of the power of these technologies is operational efficiency within manufacturing.This is particularly true with the rise of the role of robots in manufacturing industries and the supply chain....
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Contents May Settle, But You Don't Have To
Everyone has experienced the disappointment of opening a bag of chips or crackers and looking inside only to see half-empty space. Often, the product contains the cryptic warning "Caution: Contents May Have Settled."Visually, this isn't very pleasant, but everyone knows the content volume is the same. It's just the space between the products affected by the journey from factory to retail shelf.…
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How Smarter Manufacturing Helped These Companies Beat 2023’s Biggest Challenges
As we look back on 2023, the ripple effects of the pandemic continued to shape manufacturing as businesses reassessed, adapted, and innovated in response to the many challenges the year brought. Businesses are rethinking their manufacturing strategies, leveraging cutting-edge tools to navigate unprecedented roadblocks. From enhancing visibility and agility to embracing automation not only to…
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Digital Building Blocks for Your Enterprise
From the most straightforward shed to the highest skyscraper, every structure is built with a complex assortment of components. These “building blocks” give the structure support and strength and allow it to be used as designed.As manufacturing industries rapidly adopt Industry 4.0 technologies to create smart and fully digital manufacturing systems, companies are realizing that digital building…
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Digital Building Blocks for Quality
Automotive manufacturers operate in a hyper-competitive industry, producing complex pieces of equipment that have, on average, over 30,000 parts. Manufacturing them comes with substantial uncertainty due to quickly shifting consumer tastes—and the unwavering expectation for high quality....
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Looking Beyond Your Horizons in 2024
Put yourself in the mindset of settlers from long ago exploring a new landscape. As they started each new day, their effort to understand what was beyond the horizon faced a manual and labor-intensive process. Several scouts would head off in different directions, hoping it was the right path to answers. They had to endure harsh conditions, uneven terrain, obstacles like rivers and mountains,…
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